


Redemption

by koalathebear



Series: The Expanse: Missing Scenes [10]
Category: The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Redemption, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:11:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8080915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: Set after Nemesis Games.  Exploring the friendship/relationship between Amos Burton and Clarissa Mao.  Spoilers for the book series.Clarissa is from the books.  I'm basing my Amos on the tv series version (hot!) rather than the book version (less hot! :)I’ve probably made horrible mistakes and typos along the way.  Please just let me know and I’l fix them.





	1. Nightmares

_“Sometimes you don’t get redeemed … Not every stain comes out. Sometimes you do something bad enough that you carry the consequences for the rest of your life and take the regrets to the grave. That’s your happy ending.”_  
\- Clarissa Mao, Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey

*

"I swear I'm going to make her sleep in the air lock from now on …" Holden muttered as Clarissa's screams could be heard again. The sound of her blood-curdling cries penetrated even the sealed doors.

"Ssh it's all right … Amos will calm her down…" Naomi murmured soothingly, resting her long slender hand on his bare chest and pressing a kiss to his lips.

"What's taking him so long? Is he taking the long way around to get to her quarters," Holden demanded a little irritably although he smiled slightly as his lips clung to hers.

Naomi didn't bother reminding Holden that everyone on-board the _Roci_ suffered from bad nightmares. _All_ of them had seen things they wish they hadn't, done things that they regretted bitterly afterwards ...

"It's gonna be a hell of a long trip to the Ring," Holden sighed but allowed Naomi to distract him.

*

The last scream was heart-rending, such that even Bobbie and Alex on duty watch up on the ops deck could hear her.

"Poor kid …" Alex muttered. "Poor murderous kid …" he added conscientiously, his Mariner Valley drawl thickening on purpose. 

Bobbie turned her head towards the sound and her face tightened in sympathy. Clarissa's screams reminded her of her own nightmares that came and went with unwavering regularity. Sometimes it felt like how she was marking the passage of time these days – one new nightmare to haunt her sleep.

*

"Hey … hey … hey … what's with the racket, Peaches?" Amos demanded gently, standing by her bunk, careful not to touch her. If she was still in the grips of a nightmare, he didn't want her to think that she was under threat and accidentally trigger her implants. Just two counter-clockwise circles against the roof her mouth would do it - turn the thin, frail-looking girl into a deadly machine that slaughtered without mercy.

The _Roci_ crew had debated at great length in relation to the matter of what should be done about Clarissa's modified endocrine bundle.

"I vote we put the medical restraint cuff to her ankle," Holden had told his crew grimly.

"Seconded," Alex had chimed in with alacrity. The cuff had been set to sedate her on a signal from any of the crew, or if it detected any of the products of her artificial glands. The problem was that it was three kilos of formed yellow plastic that clung to her leg like a heavy barnacle.

"Come on, we can do better than that," Amos had reasoned. "That thing's a pain in the ass."

"She's already agreed to it," Holden pointed out.

"Doesn't make it right. She'd agree 'most anything in order to stay."

"Well it's settled then," Holden retorted.

"We could all carry tranquilliser guns," Bobbie had suggested.

Amos had rolled his eyes. "Typical Martian. Solution for everything is a gun." He gave an oof as Bobbie elbowed him sharply in the stomach.

"I can kill you with my bare elbow, don't need a gun," she told him flatly, a gleam of humour in her eyes lightening her words.

"Well what do you think?" a frustrated Holden had demanded of Naomi, as usual, looking to her to be the voice of reason. 

The tall, slender woman had shrugged her hands elegantly in the Belter gesture that sometimes Holden found himself adopting these days. "I think … that if she wanted to kill us – she's had more than enough chances …" Holden had rolled his eyes. The compassion that he loved in Naomi Nagata was also a source of profound exasperation when it came to Clarissa Mao. His lover seemed to see some sort of parallel redemption arc and pathway to forgiveness in the footsteps of the young woman from Lunar.

In the end, the stalemate in decision-making had led to Clarissa being permitted to roam free on the Roci.

"If she murders us all, this is your fault," Holden had told Amos grimly.

_Clarissa felt Ren's neck pop when it broke … the cartilaginous disks ripping free, the bundle of nerves and connective tissue that his life had run through coming apart … She kept striking the base of his skull until she felt the bone give way beneath her palm … remembered the kindness in his eyes, the gentleness of his voice and the screaming began again …_

"Peaches. Snap out of it."

Clarissa's eyes snapped open. Her breath came in sharp, ragged bursts and there was a moment of blind panic as she looked around her darkened quarters. Then she closed her eyes momentarily and focused on the memory of the familiar voice that had called her out of her nightmare. She inhaled deeply. Her body relaxed slightly as she detected a familiar and comforting scent … soap … and solvent – all the soap in the universe never seemed to remove the smell of solvent and fuel from him. 

Amos.

"Nightmare," she bit out with a sob.

"No kidding," he countered with wry amusement. Now that she was conscious, he reached out to grip her hand tightly in his. "You're safe," he assured her.

"You know that's not what I dream about, Amos," she told him tightly. When she closed her eyes, she dreamt of all the people whose lives she had taken. When she dreamed, she heard the screams of the victims of the _Seung Un_ … and like tonight, most of all she saw Ren. She'd see Ren's face until the day she died.

"So these quarters of yours used to be mine… got myself a new one and gave you this one because it got christened with shit after a disaster with vodka goulash …"

That made Clarissa laugh, albeit reluctantly. "Why was it Holden who cleaned up your bunk?" she wanted to know, her thin hand twitching in his.

Amos grinned through the darkness. "I was trapped in the head shitting out my intestinal lining … Naomi was outside trying not to gag … trying to give me drugs for the explosion happening in my guts …"

"Why would you want to make goulash out of vodka?"

"I like to live on the edge, Peaches," Amos told her and she laughed.

He stayed until she fell asleep. When she woke in the morning, he was still sitting in the chair beside her bunk, head falling forward, snoring softly, his mouth slightly open.


	2. Belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarissa becomes part of the crew of the _Roci_ \- gradually.

_"You know, Peaches, it’s nice how we got all this help and stuff, but I kind of liked it better when it was only you and me …"_  
_"You say the sweetest things."_  
\- Nemesis Games

The next day the two of them worked in engineering side by side, wearing welding rigs with their masks protecting their faces.

Both were entirely absorbed by their work, the sparks flickering in the dim light of engineering as they fused plates together. Under his patient tutelage, she was learning how to be a ship's engineer. The reading she'd done to pass as an electrochemical technician helped in the journey, but most of all it was Amos' patience, the endless reading he piled on top of her and the quiet but firm guidance he gave her.

Some people went crazy on a long haul, the months spent on the burn, pushing them to the edge. It was never like that for Amos and it was the same for Clarissa now. For long stretches of time, there was nothing to do but maintenance work, clean … learn how to cook … take her turn at watch duty up on the ops deck … learn basic medical training in the medical bay… She learned that Amos had a toe that if he had it at the wrong angle on a fast burn, it would pop out and hurt like hell, so she learned how to treat it with anti-inflammatories. She learned how to measure out Holden's anti-cancer meds, help Naomi re-stock the stores when they were low. In a strange way, it took the urgency away from things as there was a plan to which she was working. For once in her life, she felt a strange and irrational sense of peace and well-being.

Alex told her that she was lucky to feel that way and that when he'd been in the Navy, some of the young people had gone stir crazy. Getting angry over trivial slights, eating too much or not at all. Those people would pace restlessly, snapping and angry. "We'd have to put sedatives in their food just to keep them from flipping out."

"Wow," Clarissa had marvelled. "I can't imagine feeling like that … "

"Yeah, some kinds of things you just can't train for. Months in a tin can can make some people go out of their head," Alex had told her.

"I like the peace. I feel safe on board the _Roci_ …" she confided.

"As do we all," he had replied with a faint smile, aware of the irony of saying that to someone who could snap his neck without second thought if triggered …

Nonetheless, he'd a real soft spot for anyone who kept his girl running smoothly, for someone who touched her fingertips to the machinery with affection and love when she thought no one else was looking. She had all the qualities of a dedicated grease monkey, that was certain, working without complaint alongside Amos. Even menial tasks like adding nutrients and filters into air recycling systems.

The crew had conducted a little ceremony in the galley for the conferring of her own tool belt and Holden had raised a toast.

"The things in there can all be used as weapons, so we're trusting you here, Clarissa," he'd told her warningly, only half-joking.

"Her whole body is a fucking weapon, cap - what are you talking about?" Amos had countered, calling a spade a spade, same as always.

It had been a ridiculously proud moment for Clarissa and she'd downed a cup of matcha tea in place of the vodka the rest of the crew drank. She often shared Amos' duties, helping people get in their suits, checking the seals on everyone’s helmets. It made her feel useful. 

"Not bad," he complimented her on her latest work and she felt the warmth that she always did when he praised her. 

"Thanks, sir," she told him quietly.

"I ain't no sir," he told her again with a grin as they stopped for a coffee break. They were all coffee drinkers on the _Roci_. James Holden led the charge, but Amos was usually inseparable from his huge coffee thermos flask - a flask that he shared with her at times like this and she sipped the piping hot coffee appreciatively. "Now if you're done - go and check the rest of the doors out for me, will you?"

"Sure thing." She spent the rest of the morning running her hands door frames, looking for the telltale scrape of binding sites. Amos always did this when she'd had a particularly bad nightmare the night before – gave her a series of menial tasks, things to fix and repair as if somehow fixing a broken seal and patching a cracked wall could repair her broken soul. Maybe it could.

*

During meetings, over meals, she sat with the crew, quiet and awkward. Eyes downcast, listening intently but seldom speaking.

The others had grown accustomed to her presence without realising it. 

_Pass the salt, Claire._

_You going to eat that, Claire? If not – hand it over .._

The _Roci_ ’s galley had a full kitchen and a table with room for twelve. It also had a full-size coffeepot that could brew forty cups of coffee in less than five minutes whether the ship was in zero g or under a five-g burn. It was Holden's baby and when he thought no one was looking, he could occasionally be seen stroking the stainless steel cover while it made gentle percolating noises. It was a favourite hang-out for the crew. Holden brewing coffee, Alex baking something delicious in the oven, Amos banging around noisily as he prepared food. 

Amos had taught her how to make his favourite dish - pasta and mushrooms, heavy on the garlic, heavy on the Parmesan. The others told her that he always splurged to buy real cloves of garlic and actual Parmesan cheese to grate. 

Naomi taught her how to make simple stir fries, standing and watching the young woman as she carefully prepared the ingredients, her dark eyes shadowed with concentration.

Naomi never let her apologise for the things that had happened before. For the fact that she'd almost died at the hands of Clarissa Mao. "You're not that person anymore, Claire … you're this person – someone who's going to make the perfect stir fry…."

Clarissa never started conversations or jokes with the others. She remained quiet and unobtrusive, as if she hoped that by not attracting attention, she'd not remind them of the monster she was and that it was insanity for them to let her stay in their midst.

"She looks kind of … lost and empty," Bobbie had remarked one day.

"Yeah," Amos had countered.

"Doesn't worry you?" Bobbie had questioned.

"That's just kind of how she is," Amos had said with a shrug.

Bobbie made a tsk sound of exasperation, shaking her head at him.

"What? You want us to braid each other's hair? Eat ice cream and cry?" he demanded, looking a bit affronted. 

Bobbie offered to train with Clarissa - hand to hand combat. Even without activating the implants, Clarissa was very good at fighting. Better than good. She'd started learning how to fight with her hands, feet – every part of her body since she was a child. 

As she gradually built up her strength again, regained lost muscle mass and health, her body remembered how to fight properly without the aid of chemical stimulation. Although nowhere near as strong as the powerful marine, she was light on her feet, quick and wily … they were surprisingly evenly matched. She knew the marine was taking pity on her, but she didn't care – she enjoyed the sparring.

Now and then Alex and Amos would come to the gym, laying odds on who'd win, openly admiring the sight of two very attractive women fighting one another in hand to hand combat, their taut lithe bodies covered in perspiration. 

"You perve on my ass one more time, Burton and I'm going to kick yours," Bobbie had told him one day and he'd laughed.

"Bring it - I ain't afraid of no Mickey marine," he had retorted cockily, pulling off his boots and striding into the ring with an exaggerated swagger to have his ass handed to him on a platter by the powerful Martian woman.

Fighting Peaches was an entirely different matter. With him, she fought dirty, like a street kid – scrappy and completely without scruples. It was also strangely endearing. Flipping the other onto the ground and pinning them down onto the mat might have been erotic in other circumstances, but both of them were too focused on being the victor.

When she wasn't fighting or attending to ship duties, Clarissa would find a quiet part of the _Roci_ , stare out into space and practise tai chi … movements slow and patient, calm and graceful …

"What the fuck is that?" Amos asked her one day as he sat in the corner of the room, watching her conduct what looked like a slow motion fight as a dance.

"Tai chi. It's a form of martial arts."

"Where you bore the other side to death?" he demanded

Her pale mouth quirked in the beginnings of a smile. "You can speed it up. It's deadly. But you can also use it for meditation … to calm yourself."

She offered to teach him but he laughed off the offer, instead choosing to just sit and watch her. It was interesting to him to see the uncharacteristic peace and tranquillity on Peach's face when she was training. That in itself was a form of therapy and relaxation for Amos.


	3. Cuddling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn that Clarissa likes cuddling. Amos might like it, too. Maybe.

In her nightmare, she triggered her endocrine bundle… the suite of manufactured glands tucked in her throat and head and abdomen squeezing their little bladders empty, pouring complex chemistry into her blood as she shuddered. In her nightmare, she could feel conscience and inhibition sliding away as she prepared to kill…. 

Clarissa's eyes snapped open and she gasped, her hands seizing the blankets on her bunk. Her mouth was open and her throat was tight and hurt, so she knew that she'd been screaming. It had been a dream ... she hadn't activated the implants... nonetheless, her body still remembered the after effects of triggering the implants and she slid out of the bed to the floor, sweat pouring down her face as she began shaking. Hugging her knees to her chest, she began sobbing. When her flesh came down from a chemical burst, that's what it had done … but now, she was sobbing because of genuine sorrow, fear and regret.

She closed her eyes and took deep breaths to keep the nausea at bay. Then she rose to her feet, wiping her eyes and walking deliberately in the direction of Amos' quarters.

He was awake as soon as the doors of his quarters slid open, knew exactly who stood by the side of his bed like a pale, silent ghost.

"Can't sleep?" he asked, stating the obvious, staring at her white face, swollen eyes and tears streaking her face.

"Something like that," she whispered hoarsely.

"Want to have a coffee in the galley?" he offered and she shook her head. "I can make you a pudding in a mug?" he offered her, knowing that she liked to rummage for dessert in the galley.

"Can I stay here with you?" she asked in a small voice.

Amos slid over and lifted the blanket. Clarissa clambered in beside him and curled up against his side like a trustful kitten. 

"Ren was kind to me … I couldn't have saved you all in the end without what he'd taught me …" She closed her eyes, reliving the snapping of bones … the hot, sticky blood on her fingers.

"You can't change the past, Peaches … all you can do is go forward …one step at a time …" his voice was low and rough.

"I know … I know …" she whispered. Clarissa buried her face in his chest and he allowed his arms to close around her and hold her close.

"I prefer not to fuck people I like," he reminded her.

"You've told me," she replied in a muffled voice, feeling the steady, reassuring thud of his heartbeat against her chest.

"You do know that , this isn't a very comfortable way to sleep, Peaches. You're going to give me a dead arm … " 

The faint snore that emerged from her told her that she had fallen asleep and that his complaints were falling on deaf ears.

Amos sighed and reconciled himself to waking up later with a numb arm.

After that, she came and slept in his bunk every night. She didn't even ask. It would be time to turn in and there she'd be, looking faintly expectant and hopeful. On the nights he had watch duty, he'd come back to his bunk and find her already there, curled up and leaving room for him to clamber in beside her.

Those nights, he'd stare at her with an unreadable expression before getting ready for bed, clambering in beside her and drawing her thin body against his, breathing in the scent of her skin, the fragrance of her hair … He'd never slept with anyone before. Fucked a lot of women … but they never stayed. He'd never stayed. He still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this strange intimacy of sharing a bunk.

The _Roci_ ’s cabins were not built for two occupants, least of all the crash couches that doubled as beds, but as Clarissa spent more and more time sleeping in Amos' cabin, it got to the point where he felt kind of weird if he was in there alone. Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone, least of all himself. 

The upside was that the nightmares stopped and with them the screams that kept the rest of the crew up. The downside was that everyone mistakenly assumed that they were fucking, when they weren't. No one asked him about it of course, but he could tell from Bobbie's smirk, Naomi's concerned gaze, Alex's studied air of nonchalance and the captain's glare of disapproval that they had all drawn their own mistaken conclusions about the arrangement.

Peaches herself was of course oblivious to it all. She just did her work during the day, practiced fighting with Bobbie, did her meditation exercises in an empty hall, read her engineering manuals and sat silently around the others . Then at night she'd come to his bunk and lie beside him and sleep.

Sometimes they talked. She told him all about Ren … She was probably never gone to be done talking about Ren. She talked of the _Seung Un_ and the grief in her soul cracked her voice, betraying her remorse and despair. He knew the details of her nightmares. The things that she'd done. Things she could never undo. 

He had a pretty clear picture about what had happened. Instead of recoiling, he just held her closer and told her about Lydia … about Erich ... about his childhood. He also told her of Ilus, the large Earth-like planet, with slightly over one gravity and a thirty-hour day. He told her of its one large continent and thousands of islands across its one giant ocean.

"I wish I could have seen it," she remarked wistfully when she learned of the traces from an ancient and advanced alien presence in the form of ancient ruins. 

"Yeah. Awesome planet. What's not to love about lethal slugs and fucking microbes that crawl into your eyes and blind you?" he replied dryly.

He also learned that she liked to cuddle. More interestingly, he learned that an unknown and undiscovered part of himself appeared to like it, too ...


	4. Chemical Combustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A side mission goes wrong.

On the way to Tycho, they pulled over on some godforsaken rock so that Holden could collect some mysterious parcel for Fred Johnson from the local mining colony.

"Just make sure it's not a virus or something, will you cap?" Amos drawled as he suited up to accompany the Holden.

"I'd like to come, too – if that's all right," Clarissa asked tentatively. She almost always remained on board when they docked anywhere and Amos and Holden glanced at one another.

"Sure. Why not?" Holden shrugged. " Bobbie and Alex are staying behind to guard the _Roci_ while Naomi runs ship diagnostics … We could use an extra pair of hands."

Clarissa flushed with pleasure and looked around with great curiosity as they stepped outside the _Roci_. It was just like any other backwater mining colony with an air of faint misery and depression, but it was bustling and full of activity and a contrast to the silence of space travel and she found it exciting.

Unsurprisingly, the parcel collection hadn't been as simple as planned and the people had tried to demand a higher price than Fred had agreed …

"Sorry – that's far too much," Holden told them grimly, shaking his head.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Darinc, the leader said with a grin that gleamed silver. "See - I've always wanted an MCRN Corvette Class light frigate …" He smile broadened as he let them know that he knew exactly what the _Roci_ was beneath her painted disguise.

Holden muttered profanities beneath his breath. He was definitely going to have words with Fred when they got to Tycho.

The three of them dove behind a stack of crates just as the shooting started. "Don't look so glum, captain – haven't had us a good fire fight in a while," Amos said cheerfully with what could only be described as unholy glee as Holden glared at him. "And you Peaches – good, clean fight is what we want. No activating your implants."

The fight would actually have gone pretty well had the numbers on the other side not increased, tipping the balance against the crew of the _Roci_ , who had until then been acquitting themselves quite admirably. 

It was when Darinc pulled a knife on Amos that everything went to shit.

"No, Peaches!" Amos called out just as the blade slid into his flesh and he cried out in pain. That was enough. The pain in his voice. Clarissa reacted without thinking, triggering her implants … the synthetic glands pouring complex chemicals into her bloodstream and snapping her into another realm of consciousness as the world around her went silent and all she could see was Darinc and his men...

The enemy.

The taste of copper filled her mouth. Time slowed and then all she could hear were screams, the sound of bone ripping from tendons, cartilage collapsing, bones shattering and blood splattering from arteries …

"Peaches! _No! Stop!_ "

A voice cut through the silence and Clarissa stopped abruptly and blinked, staring at Darinc who stood before her, body broken and blood pouring from his mouth.

"No."

Amos' voice sounded as though it was calling her from a very long way away … almost the way it sounded when he called her out of her nightmares …

"Don’t kill them, Peaches – don't do it … " Amos rasped, holding a hand to his side to stop the blood pouring out. On his feet but also swaying very unsteadily was an ashen-faced Holden.

"Fuckers shot me through the shoulder," he mumbled, his voice slurred with pain and blood loss. "We need to get back to the _Roci_ now…"

"Just one moment, captain …" Amos muttered and walked up to Clarissa as she went still. Slowly, she sank to the ground and Amos caught her by the shoulders before she fell, holding her in his arms. Her eyes rolled back and then she was vomiting violently. He held her by the shoulders, turning her head to the side, pulling her hair back from her face and waited until the fit and the nausea had passed. She shuddered once, went still, and then the blankness left her eyes.

He gently wiped her mouth and waited for her to return to him. 

Her eyes opened. "Hey," he told her gently, stroking her tangled hair from her face, inadvertently leaving a smear of his blood across her pale forehead.

“Hey,” she said. “Did we win?” she asked him, her eyes staring in panic at his bloody fingers and the knife wound that was leaking blood sluggishly.

"Thanks to you – although I told you not to do that…" He pulled his emergency medkit off his harness and quickly patched himself up in a rough and ready fashion. Then he bandaged up Holden's arm and gave him an injection.

"Is it like that every time?” Holden asked, staring at Clarissa's pale face, her limpness and the vomit on the ground.

Amos nodded, ignoring Clarissa's protests when he lifted her light body up into his arms.

"No, don't - you're injured."

"We all are and we need to get the fuck back to the _Roci_ before these guys come around and call their friends …"

The three of them managed to stagger back to the ship through a combination of determination and continuous swearing.

"Hang on, little tomato," he told her. "We’re almost there…" he encouraged her when her steps faltered.

"Don't call me little tomato," Holden bit out with grim humour as the _Roci_ came into sight.

"Guys, we need to get out of here _now_ ," Holden announced to the anxious faces of Naomi, Alex and Bobbie who materialised as their crewmates approached.

*

"Don't look like that, I'll live Peaches – not the first time I've been knifed," he told her as the wound was cleaned, stitched up and he was given a transfusion. "Probably not the last, either," he mused his grey eyes looking very contemplative.

"I'm also fine by the way," Holden announced as his shoulder was operated on by the computerised expert system that knew how to repair broken crew members. "Thanks for asking … "

Clarissa's eyes were huge and dark, not moving from Amos' face as she sat beside him, the IV in her arm pumping her full of medical goodness to restore her strength. The _Roci_ 's medical bay was an impressive display of technology and it was abuzz with activity as three patients were being treated simultaneously.

"Impressed with you for not letting her kill those men ... you've changed."

Amos gave a short, incredulous laugh. "I couldn't give a shit if those fuckers died. Peaches can't cope with any more deaths on her conscience, cap. Her nightmares are already bad enough."

Holden slumped back on his bed, not quite sure how he felt about Amos' reasons.

"We need to do something about your implants before they turn your nervous system into soup …" Amos told Clarissa grimly.

"Told you before … they can't take them out … if they pull them out, I'd survive but more of a mess than I am now …"

"I've been thinking about this. I know a guy … smart cookie. Name is Praxidike Meng. I'm going to talk to him."

Holden who was listening in raised his eyebrows. "Amos, Prax is a botanist. He specialises in soybeans not biohack implants … "

Amos glared at his captain. "I know that, but the guy's a brilliant nerd – he'll figure something out. I'm gonna contact him – get him to meet us at Tycho," he promised Clarissa. "We gotta do something captain. Her nervous system is going to get turned to mush …you saw what she's like after the implants are activated …"

Holden nodded soberly and then turned his head towards Naomi as she entered the infirmary to check on the patients. "Alex says there's no sign of pursuit but Bobbie's at the ready just in case… I take it that Johnson's parcel was a bust?"

"Yeah. They tried to charge us more – but I don't get the sense they were interested in much more than killing us and taking our ship."

Naomi sighed and sat beside Holden, leaning forward to brush a kiss across his lips. "Sometimes I feel like everyone's trying to kill us and take our ship …"

"Peaches – you should go to bed .." Amos told her gently. "I'll be fine – by the morning there'll barely be a scar."

"No, I'm staying here," she replied stubbornly.

Naomi looked up and smiled. "We can set up a bed in here so you can stay in here, too, Claire."


	5. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarissa is alone now.

_“I’m not saying she should be killed. That whole thing about how if she’s ever going back to prison, Amos is going to shoot her? I understand that he’s joking —”_

_“He’s not.”_

_“Okay, I’m pretending that he’s joking, but I’m not advocating killing her. I don’t want her to die. I don’t even want her locked up in inhumane, shitty prisons. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Shipping with someone means literally trusting them with your life all the time. And, okay, I was on the Canterbury, and we had some people there who were deeply, deeply sketchy. But even Byers only killed her husband. Clarissa Mao set out to destroy me in particular. Me. I just… I don’t… How does anyone think this is a good idea? Someone who does the things she did doesn’t just change.”_

\- Nemesis Games

*

On late watch, alone on the operations deck with one eye on the sensor and communications panel, Clarissa entertained herself browsing through the databanks of the ship, looking at old photographs from earth and Lunar. Places she'd visited as a child with her family … Places on earth that no longer existed except in her memory and in digital images.

She smiled at photos of earth's blue sky, the view of the earth from Lunar … a view she had loved as a child. Both Lunar and earth had been like home to her but it was Lunar that had given her her long, lanky build - nowhere near as tall as a Belter, but certainly taller than an earth-born girl.

On a whim, she scanned the database for mentions of her sister's name, her mouth curving with pleasure as she saw an image of Julie on the screen. Julie in a flight suit, serious and beautiful, an unreadable expression in her dark eyes.

Clarissa touched one fingertip to the screen and with a frown, clicked open a linked file. Her eyes widened as she opened an image labelled "J.M.protomolecule."

A gasp of horror escaped her lips. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at an image of her sister lying dead in a shower stall. Julie's eyes were closed. She was naked, and barely human in appearance. Coils of complex growth spilled from her mouth, ears … every opening … Her ribs and spine had grown spurs like knives that stretched pale skin, ready to cut themselves free of her. Tubes stretched from her back and throat, crawling up the walls behind her. A thick, sticky looking liquid had leaked from her, filling the shower pan several centimetres ….

"Hey I suppose I should thank you for saving Amos' sorry ass on the last - " Holden remarked from the doorway, his voice trailing off as his gaze went to where Clarissa was staring blindly at the screen.

"姐姐…" she whispered brokenly, her finger tips sliding down the screen, resting her dead sister's face.

"Shit" Holden muttered, striding forward to flick off the screen with an emphatic snap. "You shouldn't be looking at that …"

"Did she suffer?" Clarissa asked him, her eyes wide and tormented. 

He crouched beside her chair and rested his hands on her shoulders bracingly. "Don't lie to me," she told him fiercely. 

He sighed, remembering the tortured souls on Eros Station. "I'm afraid so … it would have been … a long and painful death …" 

"She died alone … I knew that my father was responsible but … oh my god …" Her voice was choked and she covered her mouth in horror, looking nauseated at the realisation of the full extent of her father's involvement.

"Claire – snap out of it …" Holden told her gently but firmly. "I'm sorry all of this happened …"

"My father was responsible for my sister's death … my mother and father are dead … Julie, Michael, Petyr, Ariadne ... I'm the only one left," she told him tonelessly. "I've no family left ..."

"That's not true," he told her with a crooked smile. "You've got family."

She looked at him, clearly confused.

"Everyone on this ship is family … " He hugged her and let her sob into his shoulder. 

"Something I should know about, cap?" Amos asked ironically from the doorway, his eyebrows lifted quizzically.

Holden reached out and turned the screen on for the briefest of seconds, enough to make Amos' eyes widen with comprehension of the scene before him.

"Ah shit," he muttered and walked forward and Clarissa rose and buried her face in his chest for a moment.

"I'm out of action only a day and you get up to all sorts of trouble – looking at photos … hugging the captain – you know he's taken, don't you? God knows why."

That made her laugh. "He's not my type anyway."

"And yet again - you do know I'm standing right here, don't you?" Holden asked in amusement. "Look after her," he told Amos who nodded.

"And yeah. We should contact Prax… even if he doesn't know – he'll know someone who knows something. Least we can do for family."

"Appreciate it, cap," Amos replied curtly, but his eyes were warm.

*

"What's on your mind?" Naomi asked Holden as the two of them lay side by side in their bunk and he was tracing the line of her cheek with his fingertip, a distant expression in his dark eyes.

"You once told me Amos wasn't afraid of monsters …"

"Yeah?"

Holden frowned. "What if … it's not that he's not afraid of monsters …"

"I don’t follow."

"What if he just has a weird ability to be able to see good in unlikely places – where most people see nothing but a monster?"

"You're getting philosophical in your old age," she teased him and pressed a kiss to his nose.

"That or just too many knocks to the head …" he agreed ruefully.


	6. Not Really F*cking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Amos and Clarissa are not really fucking.

"Move over," Amos told her as he crowded into the bathroom beside her to brush his teeth. She smiled at him in the mirror. He reached out to tug one of her braids. They gave her a disconcertingly innocent look.

When they were both in his bunk, he drew the blankets over them and felt her turn onto her side and curl up against him. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "About your sister..."

"You saw her body ... on Eros?" she asked him bluntly.

"Yeah." His voice was rough, low ... remembering the sight of Julie Mao alone in that fetid room, her body distorted by unknown horrors.

"The captain said she died alone .. that she would have suffered ..."

"Well shit. And I thought I was bad at all that touchy feely stuff ..." Amos muttered with feeling, resolving to have words with Holden for his pathetic attempt at comforting Peaches. 

That made Clarissa laugh. "You do ok," she told him.

Without realising that he was doing it, he tightened his arms around her and brushed his lips lightly against the back of her head before falling asleep. 

"'Night Peaches."

What had started out as platonic had changed over time. Contact was becoming increasingly intimate as her hand would rest lightly on the bare skin of his chest … or his hand would cup her breast, his thumb stroking across the sensitive nipple lightly even as a voice in his head told him to back away and send her back to her own quarters … to a bunk she never slept in anymore …

Her fingertips traced over the massive white scar that puckered the right side of his abdomen, pulling his navel off centre, over the tattoo of a woman over his heart. One of his many tattoos. She'd never asked him the stories behind any of his tattoos or even his scar, quietly waiting for him to be ready to tell her in his own time... 

__

Her hand slid down and rested on top of his crotch, smiling with knowing pleasure as his cock stirred beneath her hand.

"I'm not fucking you," he'd tell her grimly even as the traitor between his legs telegraphed other preferences.

"Everyone else thinks you already are," she murmured, her mouth sliding down his taut abdomen. His hand reached down and tried to stop her, the effort weak and more than a little half-hearted. He groaned as her warm lips closed over his thick cock that pulsed responsively in her mouth. His curse words were a combination of Earther and Belter profanities and his fingers tangled in her thick, dark hair as he thrust up into her willing mouth.

"Why don't you want to fuck me?" she asked him afterward, swallowing and wiping her damp mouth with the back of her hand.

"What if you activate your modification when you come?" he joked roughly and she raised an eyebrow, her pale face flushed with anticipation.

"What makes you think you could make me come?" she demanded provocatively and her challenge inflamed him and with a low growl he flipped her onto her back in his bunk and removed her night clothes with his steady hands, hands that were rough and calloused from his work but skillful and clever.

At first, he made her come with his hands and fingers alone … sliding inside her deliberately and knowingly as she gripped the bed with convulsive fingers and arched up against his touch.

After that when she was still whimpering with her first climax, he lowered his mouth and let his tongue, lips and teeth bring her to a second release, her fingers sinking into his hair as she jerked up against him violently, her body twisting and her mouth open and contorted with pleasure.

*

"Well, well, well …"

"Look, we're not fucking… Not really … Well - does oral count?" Amos asked when Naomi stared at his drowsy face one morning.

"Never took you for a gentleman, Amos. Heavy petting – really?"

He didn't really care. In his mind he was still playing by the rules that he had set up on in his own head a long time ago. He tried not to fuck people he liked and let's face it, he liked Peaches. 

He liked her a lot.

Liked the way she melted into him, sighed against his mouth when they were kissing, the way her tongue slid into his mouth and tangled with his own.

He liked the serious expression she got when she was puzzling a problem and the way her mouth curved into a smile when he kissed the frown away or traced the curve of her lip with his fingertip. He liked the way she pretended to recoil if he'd had a bit too much to drink but still kissed him anyway, laughing as her hand slid into his boxers, curved around him brought him to climax …

He liked her thin body with its long limbs, silken skin … he'd kissed every inch of her ... worshipped her body with his mouth and tongue … lavished time and attention on her and she his … He knew the way her pupils dilated, her eyes widened and her breath caught when she was about to come …

It was the first time he'd ever tried to actually fix someone … usually all he could manage was to beat the shit out of anyone who harmed someone he cared about … but Prax was going to meet him on Tycho. The older man had sounded intrigued by the puzzle and said he'd contact some people he knew. Amos trusted Prax – knew the guy would come through for him because he was the sort of person to never give up no matter what, even if the whole world told him he was crazy. Amos had seen that for himself. I mean the guy had forgotten to eat, so intent was he on finding his missing daughter ... 

Clarissa knew all about Prax, too – Amos had told her the stories.

Holden and Naomi had also warned her that Meng's specialisation was botany – soybeans to be precise, so not to get her hopes up too high given that she wasn't anything that slightly resembled a legume… but she found herself believing in Amos just because he'd never let her down yet … and because he had a way of coming up to stand behind her when she was in the galley preparing food and sliding his arms around her and pressing a kiss to the side of her throat as if they were a couple.

If no one was around, he'd allow his hands to cup her breasts and tease her nipples until she was on the edge of climax from just his fingertips alone … and then his hands would slide down between her thighs and finish her off, chuckling hoarsely at the whimpers of pleasure that escaped her lips …

They often showered together, too … The showers of the _Roci_ were surprisingly spacious … luxurious with a generous supply of hot water… and he'd have a drowsy, heavy-lidded smile of pleasure as he trailed kisses down her body, hands soaping her skin and worshipping her with his mouth and fingers.

If he knew she had the late shift on the ops deck, he'd come and keep her company with a flask of coffee and a deck of cards. If things were quiet, she'd sit on his lap, arm around his neck and they'd kiss lingeringly ... talking about everything and talking about nothing in low voices.

"He seems to have fallen pretty hard," Bobbie remarked. "Her, too …"

"Yeah… it's really weird," Alex replied, not sure what to make of it. "Naomi says they're not fucking yet though … just oral …"

"OK, I really did not need to know that,' Bobbie retorted, rolling her eyes. "Do you guys tell each other _everything_?"

"Pretty much … we're family …"

"Family normally doesn’t," share that much," Bobbie pointed out with a laugh.

"I guess this one does," Alex replied with a grin.


	7. Fourth Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty soon they were fucking. Proper fucking. Fourth base. Everything.

Pretty soon they were fucking. Proper fucking. Fourth base. Everything.

No reason not to … After a time, Amos found his protestations had become empty and pointless … 

"You can pretend you don't like me it that makes it easier …" Peaches told him throatily as she straddled him, sinking down on his cock, her eyes closed in pleasure and rocking back and forth, controlling the speed and angle… Controlling their mutual pleasure.

Amos' hands gripped her hips tightly, leaving bruises … "I like you," he said hoarsely through clenched teeth as he thrust up hard into her body, making her cry out loudly.

After that, there was no point holding back … they fucked in the shower … against the wall of his quarters … in the bunk .. on the floor … Alex even walked in on them fucking down in engineering once although after hearing his exclaimed mutterings of outrage, they confined their activities to more private surrounds…

"No more fucking in engineering. Work comes first!" Holden had told them both severely and even Amos had had the grace to look ashamed. He'd never been caught out on the job before.

He'd stopped her when she'd talked about getting the expert system in the medical bay to put in a contraceptive implant. "No need, Peaches," he'd told her, a slightly shuttered look in his eyes. "Had a vasectomy as soon as I was old enough - no danger of impregnation from me ..." She added it to the long list of things she didn't know about him, the things that maybe one day he'd tell her about ...

*

"This mean you're going steady?" Holden asked one morning as he studied Amos' slightly bewildered but very satisfied expression. There was a relaxed look about his shoulders, and something in the set of his jaw had changed. Holden knew the look well - it always meant that Amos had got laid.

"No… we're just fucking," Amos retorted but his expression softened as Clarissa entered the room and he reached out his hand to tangle his fingers with hers and draw her to sit by his side. She moved towards him automatically, leaning against him trustfully, more relaxed and calm than Holden had ever seen her.

"Uh huh," Holden replied, exchanging a knowing glance with Naomi.

"Young love," Alex drawled,"Ain't it grand?"

"I hope she doesn't break his heart – or murder him in his sleep," Holden muttered.

"So cynical," Bobbie chided him. "She's clearly a reformed character … you should cut her some slack."

"I'd murder him when he was awake, eyes wide open …" Clarissa corrected them.

"You on top of me is murder," Amos told her, his eyes warm with arousal like banked fires and Alex made gagging noises.

"Get a room," Bobbie laughed, shaking her head but clearly amused. 

*

Sometimes Clarissa cried when they fucked, which Amos found thoroughly disconcerting.

"Peaches – no … don't do that …" he'd tell her, his hand reaching up to brush the tears away from her cheeks.

The first time she cried, he stopped mid-thrust, eyes horrified. "Am I hurting you? Are you all right?" he demanded, holding himself still and preparing to pull out of her.

She had given a choked laugh and tightened around him. "Stay," she had told him and then she had arched up against him and he had lost the ability to control himself after that.

"You gonna tell me why you were crying?" he had asked her and she had rolled onto her side and kissed him lingeringly. She could taste herself on his mouth, smell her scent on his body … and she savoured how his kiss tasted on her lips.

"I felt so close to you … it's just … overwhelming …"

"But good, right?" he had asked her in concern. 

"Very good," she had reassured him and he had relaxed visibly. 

It still threw him off though. She didn't cry every time, but when she did, his heart would feel an odd, uncharacteristic pain – a fear that he had hurt her.

"You're noisy when you come," he teased her with a smile. "Hadn't expected that … with you being all quiet like that …"

"Does it bother you?" she asked him shyly, running her hand down his unshaven jaw. 

"Nope …" He turned his head and pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand with a tenderness that he had only learned since being with her. "I'll shave tonight," he promised her as his fingertip touched the beard rash on the soft skin of her face… on her breasts and between her thighs …

"You said that yesterday …"

"Someone distracted me …not my fault," he told her with a smile. It pleased him to see that the shadows were lifting from her dark eyes, that a smile curved her pale mouth more frequently than it had before.

"We'll be at Tycho Station soon… Alex says you usually blow all your petty cash in the first few days in the brothels …"

"Alex has a big mouth …" Amos said, rolling his eyes and then rolling onto his back, pulling Clarissa on top of him so that he could rest his big hands on the curve of her bare ass.

"Wouldn't want to spoil your fun," she teased him.

"We'll be busy – seeing Prax and seeing what we can do about your implants – no time to go whoring …"

"That's almost romantic," she teased him.

"Probably about as romantic as you're ever going to get from me, Peaches," he told her soberly. "I'm not good with words like Alex or Naomi … "

"Do you see me complaining?" she asked him gently, running her fingertips down his bare chest. "My turn to make you cry," she told him as her tone became provocative and her touch became arousing.


	8. Tycho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew of the Roci arrive at Tycho Station en route to the Ring. The flashback scene is an extract from _Nemesis Games_.

They finally arrived at Tycho station for refuelling. The shipyards at Tycho were some of the best in the system, not to mention the friendliest. One of the crown jewels of the Outer Planets Alliance, its wide sweeping lines were there for aesthetic rather than functional reasons. The construction sphere was approximately half a kilometre across. Slowly, the great industrial sphere grew until it filled the screens, starlight replaced by the glow from equipment guides and a glass-domed observation bubble. Steel-and-ceramic plates and scaffolds took the place of the blackness. There were the massive drives that could push the entire station, like a city in the sky, anywhere in the solar system. There were the complex swivel points that would reconfigure the station as a whole when thrust gravity took rotation’s place. 

“Tycho control, this is the Rocinante. Are we cleared for docking?” 

Clarissa heard a distant voice speaking to Alex alone. "Roger that,” Alex said. “We’re comin’ in.”

She watched Alex with his two joysticks. A tap, and the gravity under Clarissa changed, her couch shifting under her by a few centimetres. Then another tap and another shift. The heads-up display showed a tunnel through the vacuum outlined in a blue and gold that swept up and to the right, ending against the side of the turning ring. The long bluish lights of the windows in Tycho’s observation dome were so clear Clarissa could see the people looking out at her. She could almost forget that the screens in the cockpit weren’t windows.

The crash couch shifted to the side, the wide plane of the station curving down as Alex matched the rotation. To generate even a third of a g on a ring that wide would demand punishing inertial forces, but under Alex’s hand, ship and station drifted together slowly and gently. The _Rocinante _slid into place beside an extending airlock port, then eased into her berth with one last correction, one last shifting of the gimbaled couches. The final matching spin had been no more than any of the small corrections Alex had made on the way in. There was a disconcerting bang as the station’s docking hooks latched on to the ship.__

“Tycho control,” Alex said. “This is the Rocinante confirming dock. We have seal on the airlock. We are reading the clamps in place. Can you confirm?” 

A moment passed, and a mutter. "Thank you too, Tycho,” Alex said. “It’s good to be back.”

Gravity in the ship had shifted subtly. Instead of thrust from the drive creating the illusion of weight, it now came from the spin of the ring they were clamped to. Clarissa felt like she was tilting slightly to the side whenever she stood up straight, and had to fight the urge to overcompensate by leaning the other way. 

*

The station had wide, luxurious passageways. There were plants everywhere, but for the most part they seemed decorative. The curve of the decks was slight.

Clarissa's face was shuttered and tense as she surveyed the crowds on the station and without realising he was doing it, Amos reached out and took her hand in his as they made their way through the station.

Most of the people who walked past were Belters, their bodies longer than Earth standard, their heads wider. Alex and Bobbie had grown up in the relatively low Martian gravity, but even they didn’t quite match the physiology that a childhood rich in null g gave. The Belters nodded at Naomi as one of their own and acknowledge the others silently.

Amos felt Clarissa's hand twitch in his. She wasn't comfortable in crowds … she had grown comfortable and insulated onboard the _Roci_ and being back amongst people was causing her to almost have a panic attack.

"Relax … deep breaths …" he reassured her as she looked around nervously, her movements quick and choppy, like a frightened bird.

Plants grew in the empty spaces of the wide corridors, vines crawling up against the spin gravity as they would have against the normal pull on Earth. Children scampered through the halls and they walked through to the common area and looked up through the massive and multilayered clear ceramic at the glittering spectacle of the shipyards.

Clarissa found it beautiful and terrifying at the same time. She'd been away from people for so long, it almost felt wrong to be amongst them while they remained oblivious of how dangerous she was, how she'd been condemned to life out the remainder of her days in a maximum security facility, drugged and restrained… It seemed strange that their gazes looked at her and then moved on, not realising that they were in the presence of a monster.

Fred had given the crew three suites in the management housing level of Tycho Station’s habitation ring. Holden and Naomi were to share one, Alex and Bobbie had been given another and Amos and Clarissa had been given the third one.

Its door with a homey fake wood texturing and a number set into the wall just as bright. Amos unlocked the door and they put their bags down and freshened up. When Amos was in the bathroom, Clarissa opened the blinds and stared out at the enormousness of the station, daunted by the number of people she could see.

The suite Naomi and Holden had been given was just down the corridor from the one she and Amos had been allocated and they made their way there.

"Fred says more ships have disappeared through the Ring – Martian, UN … Belter … there's something going on and it's not good," Holden told them grimly, joining them just as they were entering the room. "Hey. Any word from Prax?"

"He's arriving on the next shuttle – should be here any moment now."

The wall screen was on, the graphics and talking heads of a newsfeed playing, but the sound was muted. 

As Amos studied Clarissa, it occurred to him that they'd have to get her some new clothes. Even though she'd filled out slightly, she was still swimming in the clothes that they had onboard the _Roci_. 

Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and Naomi handed her a hand terminal and she took it with a delighted smile on her face, reminding him of the conversation they'd had when they had escaped earth …

*

_There were tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. “We did it. We made it safely to Luna. Just like we hoped.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“You know what I really missed when I was in the Pit? Anything that actually meant anything. They fed me, and they kept me alive, and we had this kind of support group thing where we could talk about our childhood traumas and shit. But I couldn’t do anything that mattered. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t talk to people outside the prison. I was just being and being and being until sooner or later, I’d die and they’d put someone else in my cell.”_

_She leaned forward, her elbows on the workbench. She’d burned the side of her thumb on something – a soldering iron, the barrel of a gun, something – and the skin was smooth and pink and painful-looking. “I won’t go back there.”_

_“Peaches, there’s no there to go back to. And anyway, I’m pretty sure Chrissie knows you’re on board here. She’s not pushing the issue, so as long as we stay cool and act casual —”_

_Her laugh was short and bitter. “Then what? You can’t take me with you anymore, Amos. I can’t go on the Rocinante. I tried to kill Holden. I tried to kill all of you. And I did kill people. Innocent people. That’s never going away.”_

_“In my shop, that’s just fitting in,” Amos said. “I appreciate that seeing the crew again could leave you feeling a little antsy, but we all know what you are. What you did. Including all the shit you did to us. This isn’t new territory. We’ll talk it through. Work something out.”_

_“I’m just afraid that if he doesn’t back your play, they’ll send me back, and —”_

_Amos lifted a hand. “You’re missing some shit here, Peaches. Lot of folks seem to be. Let me lay this out again. There’s no back, and it ain’t just the real estate. The government that put you in prison only sort of exists anymore. The planet that put you in prison is going to be having billions of people die in the next little bit. Making sure you serve your whole term doesn’t mean shit to them. There’s a new Navy between us and the Ring, and there’s still a thousand solar systems out there to fuck up the way we fucked up this one. Because what you’re doing right now? Yeah, you’re worrying about how it would go for you if none of that happened. And I’m thinking that you’re doing it because you’re not looking at the facts.”_

_“What facts?”_

_“It ain’t like that anymore.”_

_“What isn’t?”_

_“Any of it,” Amos said. “With Earth puking itself to death and Mars a ghost town, everything’s up for grabs. Who owns what. Who decides who owns what. How money works. Who gets to send people to prison. Erich just called it the queen of all churns, and he ain’t wrong about that. It’s a new game …"_

*

It was definitely a new game. Amos was someone he'd never been before … feeling things he'd never felt before that he knew he couldn't articulate. She looked his way and smiled at him and there was a warmth inside of him that was also new.

There was a knock on the door and Amos flung the door open, his smile broad and welcoming. "Prax!"

"Amos! It has been too long." The dark-haired man with the dark-eyes was smiling at him warmly. Amos had pretty much been his minder and babysitter during his time with them on the _Roci_ and he was still grateful for all the assistance Amos had given him. His daughter Mei stood at his side as did a tall, man with iron-grey hair that he did not recognise.

"Amos Burton – this is Dr. Ravi Karlsson, he specialises in biochemistry and is very interested in the case you mentioned to me."

Fred Johnson had agreed to give them access to a medical wing that also contained a research lab with advanced testing equipment. Johnson knew the substance of what they were undertaking and had given his tacit consent but he had told Holden sternly,"Whatever you do – do not permit those implants to be triggered while she is on Tycho. I have seen what shit goes down when that happens."

"Do you want to get started today?" Dr Karlsson asked and Clarissa glanced at Amos and then nodded mutely.

"You coming with me, Mei?" Prax asked his young daughter who looked undecided.

Bobbie smiled at her. "Do you want to go and explore Tycho Station with your Uncle Alex and me?" The last time they'd met, she and Amos had played catch with Mei, throwing her through the air of the machinery shop in zero gravity.

"Uncle Alex?" Alex mouthed at Bobbie reproachfully who grinned and ignored him.

"We can get an ice cream if you want," she promised the little girl whose eyes widened in delight.


	9. Mei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A barrage of tests begins and Clarissa receives comfort from an unlikely source.

Clarissa looked very small and thin in the hospital gown. At first the tests were innocuous and noninvasive. Amos sat and watched as they took rather large quantities of blood from Clarissa for testing and analysis. "I'm going to test her adrenal gland functions … the implants normally supplement the adrenaline flow…"

Then it was the extraction of bone marrow… Amos watched as Clarissa lay on her stomach, a needle placed through her skin into the marrow cavity of her hipbone, where her stem cells and blood were aspirated. Karlsson made three skin punctures on each rear hipbone. They took multiple samples, performing many small aspirations. Bandages were placed over the needle marks to protect them. Clarissa's face grew paler and paler and Amos could see tears in her dark eyes, saw her biting down on her lip to keep from crying out.

Then the examinations became even more intrusive with blades cutting into flesh… flesh biopsied for studying and examination.

"For fuck's sake, can't you give her something for the pain?" Amos demanded as he watched Clarissa swallow hard, clearly struggling not to scream aloud.

"I'm sorry. If we do that then we can't monitor her reactions properly," Karlsson told them, a note of genuine regret in his voice. "She needs to be awake and lucid while we do these tests."

The testing went on for several days and Clarissa was not able to leave the medical wing, staying there overnight, as did Amos. 

"How you holding up?" he asked her roughly as he lay on the bed beside her. He couldn't hold her … she was covered in cuts, bruises and surgical wounds. 

"I'm ok," she replied in a small voice.

"Pretty rough-going," he told her.

"Yeah."

Amos stayed throughout the course of the tests, flinching visibly when some of the more painful tests made her scream out loud. The others volunteered to sit with Clarissa so that he could have a rest.

"No, I'm good," he replied tersely, refusing to leave the medical wing were Clarissa lay curled up in the foetal position, whimpering to herself in pain.

He chose to self-medicate, taking large swallows from a bottle of vodka and his hands clenched into fists as he watched the young woman lying on the bed, strapped down and screaming as they continued to cut, inject, extract, test and slice.

"I sure as hell hope that something good is coming from this … torture…" Amos told Prax grimly.

"Ravi is one of the best in his field. He's worked with military biotech for decades," Prax reassured him. 

"There's a reason why glandular modification never taken root in the military. A squad of soldiers without hesitation or doubt, so full of adrenaline they could tear their own muscles and not care, might win battles. But the same fighters curled up and mewling for five minutes afterward would lose them again. It was a failed technology," Karlsson muttered beneath his breath, feeling Clarissa's throat, staring into her eyes, checking her reflexes. Her breathing was shallow and he took her pulse and frowned slightly.

"Daddy – what's wrong with the lady?" Mei asked curiously, standing in the doorway, holding Bobbie's hand.

"She wanted to say goodnight," Bobbie said with a smile. "She's beaten Alex at cards five times in a row … and she's bored now."

"She's a genius," Prax said with a warm smile which faded as he saw Mei approach Clarissa's still figure that lay stretched out on the bed.

"Are you ok?" her voice asked softly. "Are you sore? I hate going to the hospital, too," she confided. "I've got Myers-Skelton Premature Immunosenescence … so I've been to hospital a lot … lots of needles … but it's ok to be afraid. It's ok to cry," Mei told her comfortingly.

Prax felt tears sting his eyes. It felt strange to hear his own words being repeated back by his daughter. There had been so many nights when he'd held his crying daughter. 

_It's ok to be afraid … it's ok to cry …_

Clarissa rolled onto her side to face Mei. Her face was pale and swollen, a contrast to the mottled bruising on her arms, legs and throat. Her dark eyes looked like burnt holes in a piece of paper as she looked at the little girl, a little girl who looked remarkably like she had at the same age … pale skinned, dark-eyed, round-faced with the neat pudding bowl haircut that gave her an almost cherubic appearance.

"That's a big word for a little girl to be able to say," Clarissa said with an effort, swallowing hard.

Mei nodded. "My immune system doesn't work properly. I have to take medicine twice a day … or my own body will kill me," she told Clarissa in a matter-of-fact voice. Without twice-daily doses of an artificial catalysing agent, the normal flora of her digestive system would start overgrowing. The bacteria that normally lived benignly in her mouth and throat would rise against her. 

"That's very scary …"

Mei nodded. "I used to be scared … but my father believes that science will find a cure one day … and I'll be safe … They'll find a way to fix you, too," she assured Clarissa.

Clarissa's pale lips curved into a faint smile. "That's nice of you to say … but well … you could say that I did this to myself … so maybe it's my own fault … maybe it's a punishment for the things I've done wrong …"

"Are you sorry for what you did?"

"Very, very sorry," Clarissa assured her.

"Can you fix what you did?"

Clarissa shook her head slowly. "No … never …" she told her simply and sadly. "I hurt a lot of people... I can't ever fix that."

Mei's face grew very serious. "But you can still help people … maybe not the people you hurt, but you can help other people …"

"You're right," Clarissa agreed. Mei pulled up a chair and sat beside Clarissa. 

"Do you want me to read to you until you fall asleep?" she asked earnestly.

"I'd like that very much …"

The others watched silently as little Mei Meng pulled her hand terminal out of her pink backpack and began reading aloud to Clarissa, her voice serious and clear.

"Your daughter is remarkable," Alex murmured, no hint of levity in his voice for once.

"She's older than her years," Prax acknowledged. 

"You did good," Amos told him, his gaze not moving from Clarissa's face, a face that was uncharacteristically calm and serene. Mei's hand was tucked into Clarissa's bruised and bandaged hand and Clarissa was smiling.


	10. Romantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn of Clarissa's prognosis.

In the small room that had been Clarissa's quarters for the last week, the only splashes of colour were the blackness of Clarissa's hair and the contents of the small box on the table beside her bed. 

Amos, being clueless about such things, had asked Alex for advice on what he should buy as a gift. 

"Flowers. It's what you do when someone's in hospital," Alex had told him earnestly.

Thing was, Amos had never been a flowers kind of guy and after standing at the counter of Tycho Station's only florist silently, he ignored the inquiries of the immaculately coifed shop assistants and left without buying anything.

Instead he'd presented Clarissa with a small box tied with a blue ribbon. She'd opened it and stared up at him, a smile on her mouth as her fingertip touched the peaches and cherry tomatoes inside the box. 

"Amos …"

"Flowers are stupid. Kinda useless.. just sit there and then they die," he muttered, hands shoved in his overalls, looking awkward. "You like them, right?" he asked her, trying to act like he didn't really care.

Clarissa bit into a peach and started chewing. She offered him the peach and he ignored it, leaning in until his lips were only millimetres away from hers. His tongue flicked out and licked the sweet juice from her lower lip and kissed her, tasting the taste of the fruit on her tongue. 

"Sweet … just like you," he muttered hoarsely.

The door swung open and Karlsson walked in unannounced. Amos pulled back from Clarissa and glared at the tall, grey-haired doctor.

"Well? You been poking and prodding her for days … what have you got for us?" Amos wanted to know. The doctor walked over to the monitor on the wall and pulled up the data.

"You were right to come to us," Karlsson told him seriously. "This type of biotech is extremely unstable. Left in its current state, it could leak and she'd be dead within the space of several years … or she could devolve into a vegetative state." The doctor spoke bluntly and clinically as if Clarissa wasn't even sitting right there.

"Isn't there _something_ you can do, doc?" Amos demanded urgently, his grey eyes fierce. "Prax was so sure you had a clue."

"We can't take out the implants if that's what you are asking me," Karlsson said regretfully. "They've been integrated into her endocrine system – which is the purpose of this sort of augmentation. If we tried to take them out, we would risk paralysis … permanent brain damage … or worse."

"I'm not hearing a happy ending here," Amos exclaimed angrily, running a hand through his short hair. He tried to ignore the fact that it was trembling slightly.

Clarissa rested one slender hand on Amos' arm. "It's ok – we both knew that this was a long shot," she told him gently.

"Bullshit. I'm not gonna believe that there's nothing that can be done," Amos said tersely. "Try harder, doc…"

"You haven't let me finish, Mr Burton," Karlsson said with a very deliberate tone to his voice. "While we cannot remove the implant we are certainly able to administer medication that can offset and stabilise the chemical compounds in Ms Mao's bloodstream."

"Come again? Why didn't you just say so?" Amos' voice was as pugnacious as his expression.

"I was trying to," Karlsson told him witheringly, his dark eyes stern. "What I was saying was that what this means is that when she activates the implants, the after effects will not be quite so debilitating. It will also ensure that the implants do not degrade and leak in several years time - which is what normally happens."

"She'll have to take these drugs for the rest of her life?" Amos demanded.

"Yes, everyday."

Clarissa shrugged and the white hospital gown slid down a little, exposing one narrow shoulder. Wordlessly, Amos reached out and slid the gown back up gently, his knuckles sliding along her bare skin in an unconscious caress. 

"That's a very small price for me to pay, all things considered... The captain has to take anti-cancer medication every day. This would be no different."

"You would need to take blood tests every month, possibly every week to check the chemical balance in your bloodstream. I assume you have a medical bay onboard your ship?"

Amos nodded emphatically. "State of the art. Tell us what we need though."

"You would need to adjust the medication based on those test results but I believe that these drugs are your best chance of ensuring that you are able to have a longer life and don't suffer such devastating side effects after you activate the implants."

"I think that that's a pretty good deal – better than I was hoping for," Clarissa told Amos with a smile on her pale face. "Better than dying in the Pit … better than becoming a vegetable … better than my nervous system turning to crud … some would say that I'm getting off pretty lightly given my sins …" The nightmares flickered in her dark eyes and Amos stared at her and shook his head.

Then he looked back at the doctor and shrugged. "If Peaches is happy then I'm happy," he told Karlsson who nodded and began to make a note of the medication that would need to be purchased for Clarissa. Amos handed him his hand terminal so that he could upload the information.

*

Amos proceeded to spend the rest of his pay buying the drugs that Clarissa would need to remain stabilised – enough for at least several years. 

In consultation with Naomi, he also researched what equipment they needed to upgrade the medical bay, downloaded data and updated the medical databases. When he ran out of scrip, he hit up Alex and Bobbie for loans. He spared Naomi and Holden, they needed their scrip for Holden's own not inconsiderable medical issues.

"Amos – no. You can't spend all your money on me like this…" Clarissa protested.

"Says who?" he demanded roughly. "It's my money I can spend it on what I want. _Who_ I want," he emphasised meaningfully.

"But you'll have no money left to spend in the brothels," she murmured, her expression deadpan.

"Bullshit. I can always cash in my shares," he retorted, making her laugh. Even waif-like in her unflattering hospital gown with her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, she looked good to him. Better than good and he reached out his hand and drew her to him – gently as she was still very bruised and sore.

His lowered his head and his lips brushed against hers gently, hungrily. "It's been over a week … I'm horny as all fuck, Peaches," he muttered harshly. "Jerking off in the shower is just not the same ..."

" _So_ romantic," she choked, sliding her arms around his neck. "I'm even more impressed now that you haven't gone visiting the whores …Alex told me that - "

Amos' eyes darkened. "Can't see with myself … being with anyone else anymore … not since you and me …"

He picked her up in his arms and sat with her on the bed. She was too weak for them to do anything physical and so he just held her, his arm about her shoulders, her head resting against his chest as his hands smoothed through her thick, black hair and they whispered all the things they'd do to one another when she was fully recovered …


	11. Making Things Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarissa can't ever right past wrongs, but maybe there are others ways she can do good ...

The entire crew of the _Roci_ , Prax and even Mei were crowded in the small room as Karlsson showed her how to take a blood sample to test her levels. 

Amos had insisted on everyone in the crew being there to observe. "Just in case we ever need to do it," he told them.

"Amos – the computerised expert system can – " Holden started to protest until Naomi nudged him sharply with her elbow.

"Ouch, not so hard!"

"If the expert system goes down, we gotta know how to do it manually," he told them tersely, so Holden, Naomi, Alex and Bobbie dutifully watched as Karlsson demonstrated the process.

"The reason you have to check on a periodic basis is that the implants basically harness your adrenaline and increase its potency … it's like it kicks your immune system into gear and …"

As he spoke, he stared down at the vial of Clarissa's blood in his hand with an arrested expression on his face. He then glanced over at Mei who was sitting on the step, watching intently. 

"Prax … Mei - do you mind if I take some of Mei's blood?" he asked apologetically.

Before Prax could answer, Mei had stepped forward. "That's ok, Dr K. I don't mind. I'm used to it," she told him with a sweet smile and held out a small, thin arm towards him.

He took the sample into another room along with the vial containing Clarissa's blood. 

"Awesome," Alex muttered. "You do realise you dragged Bobbie, Mei and me out of game of air hockey where I was totally wiping the floor with them ..."

Karlsson returned to the room a short time later, an excited glow in his dark eyes.

"What is it, Ravi?" Prax asked him very curiously, tilting his head in perplexity.

"Prax - you won't believe it but something in Ms Mao's blood is able to counterbalance the antibodies in Mei's blood ... normalises them …I don't know how it's possible but it is."

"You're saying that you may have found a new type of medication for Mei?" Prax questioned.

Karlsson shook his head, his face flushed with exultation. "Better. I'm saying that we may have found a cure for Myers-Skelton Premature Immunosenescence!"

"That's impossible..." Prax exclaimed incredulously, not even daring to let himself hope that this might be true.

Clarissa started to smile, a real smile that curved her mouth and made her dark eyes glow with hope. "I'm sensing the beginnings of a happy ending here…" she remarked, staring into Karlsson's face fixedly.

"There's something in the interaction between the implant's secretions and Ms Mao's blood that seems to invigorate Mei's red blood cells … stop her immune system from destroying itself …It's far too soon to be definitive, but the preliminary tests that I have conducted indicate that we may be able to reverse Mei's condition …I'd of course have to filter to make sure that there was no danger of side effects."

Prax's eyes widened and he stared at his daughter with hope dawning on his face.

"Ms Mao – I know that you have been through more than enough this past week … but may I please take some more of your blood?" Karlsson asked her apologetically. "Back on Ganymede I am treating a very large number of young children who have the same condition as Mei – some of them are more critically ill than Mei and their outlook is extremely bad... It is possible that your blood might hold the key to a cure for all of them. The first bit of hope we've had … you might be giving them a chance at having a normal life - or any sort of life at all."

Clarissa held out her battered and bruised arm unhesitatingly. "Take it," she told him softly. A smile twisted her pale lips. "You can have it all if you think it might save their lives – it would be well worth it."

"Peaches," Amos said sharply. "I didn't bring you here so that you can kill yourself like a fucking martyr …"

Clarissa gave him a smile that was bittersweet in its calmness. "But what if this is how it was meant to be, Amos? What if _this_ is the way that I can start to make up for everything I've done? If my blood can save the lives of these children - if I can give them a chance … maybe then I can start to …"

Karlsson gave a short laugh. "This is very touching, there's really no need for that," he told her gently. "While it is very generous of you to offer to sacrifice all of your blood - it's not needed. I simply need to take a sufficient sample and then I can synthesise it in the lab. We really don't need to drain you dry – prefer not to actually."

Amos exhaled audibly, a sound of profound relief. Naomi was smiling, as was Holden. Alex and Bobbie were grinning like fools at Amos who pretended he didn't see them. "Fucking smug Martian assholes," he muttered beneath his breath. Bobbie placed her hands over Mei's ears. The little girl grinned up at her. 

"Uncle Amos has a potty mouth worse than Uncle Alex's."

"You call me uncle again and - " Clarissa put her hand over his mouth before he could finish the threat.

"But if we do run low I will take you up on your generous offer to top up our supply," the doctor said with a small smile, the first glimmer of levity he'd displayed the entire week.

"So because of Clarissa's blood – maybe I don't have to take my medicine anymore?" Mei asked wonderingly.

"Yes," Dr Karlsson told her. "I need to run more tests back on Ganymede of course … run some more tests and trials before we give you the cure … but I'm almost positive of my findings …"

"I'm sorry that the doctor couldn't fix you completely," Mei told Clarissa gravely. 

Clarissa crouched down to give the young girl an affectionate hug. "No, Mei. This is the best possible news that anyone could have given me," she told her sincerely, running a fingertip down the young girl's nose and kissing her on the forehead.

"Will you come back to Ganymede with us?" Mei asked her wistfully. 

Clarissa shook her head regretfully. "No. Unfortunately we have somewhere we have to go - there are some really important things that we need to do. Maybe one day I can come and visit you on Ganymede …"

Mei nodded. "I hope so … "

Everyone started as the door swung open and Fred Johnson came storming in, his face dark with a barely contained anger. A muscle moved in his jaw as his gaze raked over everyone assembled in the small room.

"Holden, do you mind telling me what the f- " his gaze fell on Mei who was standing by Clarissa's side, staring at him with solemn interest. Fred cleared his throat. "… _frog_ you thought you were doing bringing a convicted criminal … a mass murderer … a _terrorist_ onto Tycho station without telling me?" he demanded.

"Some would say the OPA was a terrorist group," Prax murmured beneath his breath but looked bland and expressionless when Fred whirled around to glare at him.

"You don't have to say frog, Uncle Amos uses bad words in front of me all the time," Mei told him unblinkingly.

"Thanks kid. Remind me to tell you what happens to tattle tales," Amos muttered.

"If we had told you - would you have let us bring her onto the station?"Holden asked him mildly, his gaze steady and calm.

"No … frogging … way," Fred exclaimed.

"Well that's why we didn't tell you," Holden replied with a shrug.

"I've got the UN and the Martians demanding to know why I'm housing a known criminal."

"The prison that she was in got destroyed by the attack on earth - surely that counts as an acquittal of sorts," Alex asked mildly.

"It doesn't count for sh – … stones!" Fred exploded.

"I'm pretty sure Chrissie gave her a pardon," Amos interpolated.

"Well if so, I can tell you that Chrisjen Avasarala has not communicated that to the UN or the Martians, so I suggest that you to get her off the station _now_ unless you want to see your friend here rotting in a jail on some backwater rock!"

"I appreciate the warning," Holden told him sincerely.

"But seriously folks, are you out of your minds? Why are you giving shelter to someone like that? Making her a member of your crew???"

Clarissa lowered her gaze and swallowed hard. 

"How many people have you killed?" Fred demanded.

"Hey – back off. You're out of line, buddy," Amos retorted, anger kindling in his eyes as his hands clenched into fists.

Clarissa put her hand on his arm and squeezed lightly, asking him to stand down. "I don't know," she replied simply and with honesty in her eyes. She'd never gone back and counted … she knew all of their names. She'd learned all the names of the people she'd killed ... the people onboard the _Seung Un_. In her nightmares she'd recited them, apologised to their families and friends … but she'd never dared to tally up the dead …

"She's sorry," Amos said mildly.

"Are you fucking shitting me?" Fred demanded incredulously, forgetting to censor himself in front of Mei. "She's _sorry_???? I'm sorry sunshine but you don't get to murder dozens of people and then turn around and say you're sorry …"

Everyone except Mei and Clarissa stared fixedly at the Butcher of Anderson Station with a slightly quizzical expression.

He had the grace to look a little bit sheepish but then continued blustering. "Get the hell out of here. I'll try to distract them - but she needs to get out of here while you can!"

*

On the ops deck of the _Roci_ , the crew stared back at Tycho Station, watching it become smaller and smaller.

"And next time, make sure you get that fucking pardon in writing before you dock!" they could hear Fred ranting over the comms.

"I got it the first ten times you told us, Fred," Holden answered before shutting down the link.

"I'm sorry you all had to leave because of me," Clarissa apologised, her voice quiet.

"We were done there anyway, Peaches," Amos said with a shrug.

"Yeah that place gets boring if you hang around too long," Alex told her. "I get sick of crowds and the noise."

"I get seriously twitchy when I'm trapped on a space station for too long," Naomi remarked.

"It was past time we got going," Holden added.

"Ships are disappearing every day, we've got fish to fry, places to be," Bobbie reminded her.

Clarissa felt the tightness in her chest relax slightly. She inclined her head slightly as if in silent thanks.

"Come on Peaches, you and me have chow duty," Amos told her with a gentle nudge and she nodded, following him down to the galley, although they took the opportunity for some light-hearted necking in the lift. Clarissa wasn't up to much more than that, but it certainly got them flushed and bothered by the time they emerged from the lift.

"Do not have have sex while preparing our food!" Holden told them over the intercom, his voice severe. He chuckled as Amos looked up at the surveillance camera and gave him the finger.

*

The design of the galley was military, all soft edges and curves to minimise damage of injuries if someone was caught out of place by an impact or a sudden maneuver. The food inventory control had a biometric interface that had been disabled. Built for high security, but not used that way. The name ROCINANTE was on the wall in letters as broad as his hand, and someone had added a stencil of a spray of yellow narcissus.

Clarissa blended together real eggs, real cheese and real milk. At her side, Amos cooked tomato paste, fresh mushrooms and herbs into a delicious red sauce before spreading the béchamel sauce over the pasta sheets to make up a lasagna. 

"Enjoy the real food, Peaches – pretty soon it's going to be fake eggs, fake cheese, fake everything …Might as well be chewing on the containers."

"I like it all," she said with a grin. "My sister used to call me garbage guts …" She gave him a quick glance. "Not that you're allowed to call me that!" 

"I come up with my own names for you," he told her with a return smile.

Holden joined them, climbing climbed down the crew ladder and into the galley. He had volunteered for given oven duty and was preparing the dough with the ingredients recently purchased on Tycho. Soon enough, the galley was filled with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread. Clarissa sniffed the air appreciatively. It had been a very, very long time since she had smelled or eaten freshly baked bread. 

When they were done washing up, Amos dropped into a chair with a thump. Holden grabbed mugs and pulled two more cups of coffee, then set them on the table. When it was time for them to eat, Alex, who had the duty watch forwarded ship ops down to a panel in the galley and sat at a table next to it, smacking Bobbie's hand away from his bread roll lightly.

"You've got your own, woman."

"I ate it - now I'm going to eat yours," she announced with a grin, her dark eyes sparkling with playful challenge.

"Children – we have enough bread rolls," Naomi announced offering Bobbie another bread roll which she took with alacrity, swearing slightly as the hot roll burned her fingertips.

"Real butter …" Bobbie breathed reverently, staring into the small dish of preciousness as Alex took the opportunity to steal some of her salad while she was distracted.

"Oh my god guys, this ... is … divine …" Holden mumbled, spooning another forkful of lasagna into his already full mouth.

"Why are you eating so fast?" Naomi demanded laughingly.

"I'm afraid Bobbie or Alex is going to start stealing my food when they finish with theirs," he declared comically. "Look at them!"

*

A few weeks after their hasty departure from Tycho, a tightbeam was received from Ganymede and the crew assembled on the ops deck to watch it.

As expected, it was Prax and Mei, their smiling faces springing to life on the screen.

Mei spoke first. "Clarissa - it worked! I'm cured!"

Clarissa started smiling broadly as Prax spoke next. "I don't know whether I really understand all of the precise details but Ravi got together with the other doctors and biochemists here and conducted a barrage of tests after we got back . They synthesised Clarissa's blood samples, extracted what they needed and then he ran extensive clinical trials. The human trials started a little while back – beginning with the terminal cases." Prax's face grew serious. "The parents with children who were in advanced, seemingly irreversible stages volunteered to participate as part of the first wave of human trials. We've had an almost 100% success rate. Even the ones Ravi has classified as "unsuccessful" did not die. They still need to continue taking medication regularly, but a much lower dose – weekly rather than daily. Mei's one of the lucky ones. She's made a complete recovery. Thank you – you have no idea of the number of lives you've helped us save."

"Come and visit me, soon Clarissa," Mei said seriously.

The screen went blank.

There was a strange and almost painful irony in the situation. Her blood with its chemical balance – or imbalance as a result of foolish choices she had made back on earth while on her blind path of revenge was being made useful. Despite all the bloodiness … the ugliness … and the darkness, it was possible to do something good and save innocent lives instead of taking them.

Amos smiled down at her. "You done good, Peaches," he told her with the crooked smile that she had grown to l-...

_Like._

"You know that I can't really take credit for any of it. It was Karlsson's hard work and smarts. Just my blood."

"Take your wins where you can get them, Peaches," he told her firmly. 

There was an alert sound from the medical bay and the band around Clarissa's wrist. "That's your date with the medical bay," Naomi pointed out with a smile.

Amos had the duty watch and clearly looked conflicted. He was never one to ask any of the others to swap with him but he was clearly considering it. 

"No – you stay. I won't be long. I'll come and find you after," Clarissa promised him and he caught her hand in his. Without realising what he was doing, he raised it to his lips for the briefest of moments.

The others exchanged speaking glances, Holden and Alex in particular looking very amused, clearly intending to give the engineer shit later on.


	12. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarissa finds a form of redemption and Amos can't say the words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finished! Thank you so much to the people who read and left comments. This is an incredibly tiny fandom and the people who ship this pairing are almost non-existent so I've really appreciated all the encouragement and all the feedback.
> 
> I’ve probably made horrible mistakes and typos along the way. Please just let me know and I’l fix them.
> 
> I do not want to leave this 'world', so please feel free to send me prompts if you want. I don't write slash because I just don't think I can write it convincingly, but I'll try most het pairings, or het OT3. Thanks again.

The ship system dimmed the lights for the night and Clarissa lay on the bed in the medical bay, the expert system adjusting her meds as she lay in the darkness. The air recyclers hummed and the blood pressure cuff on her arm squeezed tight.

She glanced at the IV. One bag a month needed to be administered by way of IV. The rest could be given on a daily basis by syringe. She closed her eyes momentarily, nostrils twitching at the smell of antiseptic in the medical bay – and vomit. She and Holden had both had a slightly adverse reaction to their meds the day before and the result had been quite disgusting.

"Geez Peaches, what did you eat? And you cap? Fuck," Amos had muttered the day before as he had cleaned up after the couple who had been gagging and heaving before Naomi had ordered the expert system to administer anti-nausea drugs.

When the system told her that she was done, she pulled the IV needle out of her arm, put a plaster on her arm and tidied up. 

The sick bay hatch was four metres from the central ladder and Clarissa moved purposefully.

The deck hatch clanged open, and the lift whined to a stop at her feet. She stepped on and tapped the button for the engineering deck. The lift began its slow crawl down the shaft, deck hatches opening at its approach, then slamming shut once she had passed.

Watch duty over, Amos was in the machine shop, the deck above engineering. He had a disassembled device on the workbench in front of him and was working on it with a solder gun. 

The _Roci_ was incredibly reliable and unless they were in a battle she did not tend to break or leak… This close after their docking at Tycho, there were scarcely any rattles to tighten down and when there was nothing else to do and nothing to fix, Clarissa would mop down the halls and the various rooms. Amos did the same but he'd also take things apart and put them back together again – improving them with a number of little tweaks and modifications.

His grey jumpsuit was tight across his broad shoulders, hugging his lean hips and powerful thighs and his face was intense with concentration as he frowned over the circuitry.

When they worked out together in the gym, she'd seen him bench pressing, his muscles bulging … the perspiration gleaming on his bare skin. Hot as hell. 

Yet there was something even sexier about watching Amos work, puzzling over problems – fixing things, his large and powerful hands skilful and precise. 

The pull of the fabric of his jumpsuit over his tight ass didn't hurt either. Working with him in engineering during a fire fight, both of them in tank tops, bare skin gleaming with sweat, their faces flushed and hot from the temperature of the equipment – that was always hot as hell in a number of different ways.

"Hey," she said from the doorway and waited.

He finished soldering, put down the tool and turned around and looked at her. "Hey yourself … finished your treatment?" he asked even as his gaze went up to her eyes. "Want something?" He asked even though he didn't need to. He knew that look well, the dilated pupils, the slightly quickened breath, the flush to her pale cheeks...

"Lock the door, Peaches," he told her roughly and she reached out and tapped the door panel to lock it, only seconds before he was pulling her into his arms and she was unzipping his jumpsuit as he fumbled roughly with the fastenings of her jumpsuit.

Moments later, she was on her hands and knees on the floor of the machine shop, using their clothing as a cushion against the hardness of the ground. Teeth clenched, Amos gripped her bare hips and thrust into her hard. She was more than ready for him. Clarissa groaned … there was something about this position that always made her come hard and come quickly … she tightened around him almost immediately as one hand went up to touch one of her breasts, brushing across the sensitive nipple knowingly.

"You do that and I'm not going to last very long, Peaches," he muttered as he reached up to hold her thick braid, tugging it just hard enough for her to tighten around him again.

" _Fuck!_ " he exclaimed hoarsely just as his hand went between her thighs to rub against her sensitive clit in a way that he knew would get her screaming with pleasure.

There was a banging on the door. "Amos – what's wrong? I can't get the door open – is it broken?"

Alex.

Amos paused in his thrusting, panting hard. "Fucking seriously?" he demanded in disbelief, looking around wildly.

"Jesus, Amos, please tell me that you and Clarissa are not in there. I already asked you very politely to keep your … activities out of communal areas!"

Clarissa was whimpering, making short urgent noises and Amos gripped her hips hard and thrust deep again, his cock sinking into her welcoming body as she shuddered in pleasure.

"Amos! This is an MCRN attack ship! You are disrespecting the Martian Navy with your habit of christening every inch of the ship!" Alex exclaimed into the wall-unit hotly.

On the other side of the door, Bobbie smothered a laugh. "Seriously Alex? What next, dishonouring the flag of our people?"

"You're not helping," he told her flatly. He touched the door panel again. "Come on buddy – what have you got to say for yourself? 

With a trembling hand, Clarissa grabbed at Amos' hand terminal and pushed it towards him. He punched a button that allowed him to patch through the door's speaker.

"Donkey balls," he bit out. "Don't give a shit about Mickey honour. We'll be out when we're good and ready," he added before disconnecting.

"Donkey balls?" Bobbie asked quizzically as Alex made a sign of disgust and started heading back towards the lift.

"Long story and now I'm way too grumpy to want to tell you about it."

Collapsing heavily onto the ground on top of their clothes, both Amos and Clarissa were gasping for breath, faces flushed and bodies covered in perspiration.

"Never say donkey balls during sex again, ok?" she ordered him, leaning over to lick the side of his throat, tasting the saltiness of his skin before she bit down sharply.

"Doesn't turn you on?"

"No. More of a turn off, actually."

"Didn't notice … _oh Amos, fuck me harder_ " he mimicked wickedly and laughed when she closed her hand into a fist and pretended to hold it up threateningly. He caught her fist and brought it to his lips, kissing it tenderly, disarmingly.

"Not sure we're going to be able to wear these back to our quarters," Clarissa muttered, staring down at their soiled uniforms. The hot stickiness sliding down her thigh was already making her stick to the jumpsuits.

"You were the one who wanted to have sex in the machinery shop, Peaches. This is all on you. And our clothes, I guess … "

Clarissa laughed and pulled him back down to her and kissed him. The jumpsuits were already ruined, after all.

*

Earlier that day, following on from the transmission from Prax and Mei, Amos had had what could only be described as an extremely awkward conversation with Naomi.

"So have you told her that you love her?" Naomi had asked him curiously.

"Where the fuck did that come from?" Amos had demanded rather hotly, clearly disconcerted by the unexpected question. "Who says I love her? You don't have to love everyone you fuck – I can tell you that for a fact. Actually it's usually better if you don't."

Naomi had given her infectious laugh and smiled at him. "Perhaps that's my answer."

"I don't do that sappy bullshit stuff," Amos had retorted, very unsettled by her gaze. "I don't know why people have to assume that it's love and shit when you're just fucking someone … "

"Crazy, I know,' Naomi agreed.

"I mean, isn't it enough that you just want to be with someone … that you want to be close to them … that you like it when they're around … that you miss them when they're not …" his voice trailed off as he realised that Naomi's smile had grown even broader.

"Go on," she encouraged him.

Amos retreated hastily from the ops deck before Naomi could extract any more unfortunate confessions from him.

"Never ever talk to me again!" he called over his shoulder as he bolted from ops as if a thousand vomit zombies were in pursuit.

Now, he was wishing that he still had his earlier uncharacteristic eloquence and loquacity. Clarissa had leaned against him in the shower as they had cleaned up after their marathon session in the machinery shop. The hot water had sluiced down their naked bodies and she'd had her eyes closed. When he had lowered his mouth to hers, he'd felt her lips curve in a smile against his.

Towelling down after the shower, his gaze had travelled over her naked body critically. She'd put on some condition since being on the _Roci_. She'd always be on the slender side, but there was some meat to her now, a bit of muscle and she looked healthier … and beautiful. She'd looked beautiful to him even when she was paper white and at her worst in the hospital room on Tycho.

His hand trailed down her shoulder and rested on one of her small breasts. "Sorry they're not as big as Bobbie's," she told him provocatively. All the men on the _Roci_ had been caught eying Bobbie's generous bust at some time or another and Amos had certainly been no exception. He laughed. "More than happy with my Lunar babe's tits," he told her seriously.

"Hey, hey - let me do that," he muttered when he saw her dragging a comb roughly through her tangled hair. He slid the comb slowly, gently, defeating the tangles and snarls, his fingers sliding through her thick hair intimately. 

"You smell good … but then you always do," he muttered, cupping he face in his hands and kissing her again.

"You smell good most of the time," she teased him, nibbling on his lower lip before pulling back. "Except for when you eat lentils ..."

"Hey they give me gas - is that my fault? Nowhere near as bad as the captain's coffee farts!"

Hand in hand they left their cabin and went to stand before a huge screen.

Although it was just a screen, it made them feel as though they were standing before a window. Clarissa's face turned very quiet and contemplative as she stared through the darkness.

Amos suddenly found himself desperately wishing that he could say even half of the things that he'd told Naomi earlier that day. But that was impossible. There was no way in this life or the next that Amos Burton would was ever going to be able to tell Clarissa Mao how he felt.

She turned towards him and smiled, reaching out her hand, which he took willingly.

"You look happy, Peaches," he remarked.

"I _am_ happy," she replied simply, thinking of Prax's happy face, of Mei's happy face.

He stared at her face for a long moment. "Uh … what's wrong?" she asked him. "Do I have something on my face?"

He shook his head and she raised her hand to touch her cheek self-consciously, rubbing at her skin just in case.

"No, Peaches, your face is clean," he assured her and his hand slid through her thick dark hair, tangling it around his fingers.

"I - " he began to say and then he stopped. Abruptly. Awkwardly. The huge gap in the conversation surrounded them.

He knew what he wanted to say and would have said if he was normal. Despite his denials to Naomi, he knew exactly how he felt … it was just impossible to form the words. This was him, after all.

"Yes?" she asked him with a smile, a knowing smile that curved her full lips and made the corners of her eyes crinkle up in the way that he loved.

Loved.

He closed his mouth again, beyond frustrated the knowledge that he was never going to be able to say the words that everyone else in the universe seemed to be able to declare with such effortless ease. 

Before he could start swearing, Clarissa drew his head down to hers and she kissed him, her mouth opening beneath his, her tongue sliding against his slowly and intimately. 

He kissed her back, his mouth, his hands, his breathing saying much more than his words could possibly convey.

Clarissa drew back, her mouth damp and slightly swollen from the pressure of his kisses. "I know, Amos. I know," she told him simply.

He wanted to ask what she knew, to make sure it was the same thing he was trying to tell her … but in the end, all he could do was stare at her. Clarissa smiled. 

He wanted to tell her that he'd always be there for her, that he hoped that she'd always be there for him, that they'd always be together. He wanted to tell her that he had her back and that he'd always protect her. 

Always. Even if meant giving up his own life – because she'd come to mean more to him than anything else in the universe.

"I'm glad," was all he managed to say, his voice hoarse and awkward, frustration apparent on his face.

"You still believed in me even when everyone else would have rightfully dismissed me as a monster .."

"You're not a monster. Anything but," he protested.

"I've done terrible things… that's always going to be a part of me."

"I've seen monsters, Peaches … been among them … I know a monster when I see one …"

His lips pressed hard together and he closed his eyes for a moment. "I – " 

_Fuck_. He just couldn't say it.

"You don't have to say the words," she told him, her eyes huge and dark. "I already know …"

"How do you know what I want to say if can't say then out loud?" he demanded finally, his voice shaking.

"I know - because I feel exactly the same way," she told him and as he held her close and felt her heart beat against his chest, Amos decided that he didn't need to say the words and ... this … this was just fine.


End file.
